Lindsayism.com

Current Obsession: Indigo Children

I was listening to the podcast of NPR's To the Best of Our Knowledge yesterday during my commute, and they did a segment on Indigo Children (click the link above to listen). I've been obsessed with the hilarious concept of Indigo Children ever since I first read about them in the fashion and style section of the New York Times in January (a must-read.) Basically, the idea behind Indigo Children is this:

"My child isn't obnoxious, self-absorbed, unmannerly and unlikeable because I've raised him or her with zero discipline, given him or her a trophy for just showing up and allowed him or her to run ramshod over his parents and everyone else s/he encounters rather than damage his or her precious self esteem...no...s/he's obnoxious, self-absorbed, unmannerly and unlikeable because s/he's here to save the world!"

If anything you've ever read, seen or heard about parenting in this day and age is like a big huge Post-it note the size of a Times Square billboard reminding you to refill your Nuvaring prescription, I think you'll find the concept of Indigo children to be the most "of course, now, here, at this precise time and place in the entire history of the world...of course" thing ever. We who are either child-free or in the minority of people who are raising children rationally no longer lack for a one-stop-shop shorthand for the anxiety and ennui we face when we think about what the world will be like when these little tyrants come of age and start being in charge of shit. It's now all wrapped up in one iconic, easy-to-remember-because-it-has-a-color-in-it brand: The Indigo Child.

Anyways, that was my little rant.

I thought it would be funny to make tee shirts ridiculing the Indigo Child "phenomenon" but apparently they're already out there.

Suggestions:
"Indigo means Annoying"
"My honor student beat up your Indigo Child."
"Please Curb Your Indigo Child"
"Indigo F**k Yourself" (okay that's just mean. and absurd.)

I found this interview with an Indigo Child expert who is helping the people of Europe understand their little messengers from the Universe. This part was funny:

SB: How do you explain the truth to the German mothers of Indigos?

CH: This is a problem. In America you can talk of a ''new race'' of children, but you can't do that in Germany. If I'm working with groups in other countries I can speak about this, but in a group of average mothers in Germany you can't talk about that.

SB: Is that because of Hitler?

CH: Yes, that's why.

the village of the damned bloggers

* You already can't swing a laptop bag around Lolita without hitting someone who thinks that blogging is going to make them rich. (And please, someone do that.) Now it's going to be even worse. These kids today with the scary dollar signs behind their eyes...

* Speaking of, my friend had a genius idea: I should have done that blogger-fashion photo shoot, but worn a fat suit and blacked out my teeth. Because that's what Amy Sedaris would do! (WWASD) Brilliant...

* Right now I'm wearing a new fragrance: Curious by Britney Spears. The main reason is I think it smells good, but the secondary reason is it's my attempt to bring irony into the realm of scent. I do think it smells good, though. Very delicate. Anyway, I can't wait for someone to ask me what my perfume is! (I also think it's funny that it's called "curious." Like "What's that curious smell?")

"an ounce of pretension is worth a pound of manure"

* Slate's Dana Stevens gives us all permission to watch Breaking Bonaduce (I haven't yet, but I will now):

"If there's a more dramatically compelling show than Breaking Bonaduce currently on television, I don't want to know about it. No, seriously, I don't."

And now for the pretension:

* Nobody cared 20 years ago, nobody cared 10 years ago, and nobody even knows what you're talking about now. Uh...seriously...Nantucket pants? Huh? You're an old lady writing about how it's so unfair than just anyone can buy Brooks Brothers now when it used to only be for special people like you? And you really think that's okay? It's like the indie-rock-snob aesthetic applied to Ralph Lauren polo shirts, which would be awesome if it was satire, but instead it's completely dead serious. This reminded me of the random guy who showed up at my birthday party and started bragging about how he went to Hotchkiss. I kept saying "Hodgkins? What's that?" even though I knew it was a prep school. The moral is: if we all pretend to have no idea what pretentious people are talking about, maybe someday they'll shut up and get personalities. It's like complaining that your favorite vintage shirt is now available in sizes small, medium and large at Urban Outfitters, only worse. No. Body. Cares.

Anyway:

Nobody Puts Lindsay in a Corner!

TO: lindsayATlindsayism.com FROM: xxxxxxxx SUBJECT: Behaviour Patterns

Dear Lindsay,

You seem like a sharp, intelligent young woman, who knows how to handle men. (MT even thinks of you when drunk, and I'm sure that's saying something). But how long do you think this will last?

Thanks for the compliments! I plan to be sharp, intelligent, a woman, and to know how to "handle men" (whatever that means) forever. (The young part, unfortunately, ended when I turned 25.) As for MT, he's just a friend, and his drunk messages are hilarious (sample: "Lindsay Robertson, I remember when you used to rock.(click)"

When women swear, talk about porn, go out getting drunk and stoned, then the behaviour of men changes accordingly.
(Oh my god, are you saying they might start thinking of me as an equal? But I'm supposed to be from Venus!)
(MT gets drunk to talk to you - is that what you want?)
(MT is always drunk - don't you read his site?)

We women are the ones that set the behaviour patterns of men; once we lose it, they follow dramatically and 1000 times worse. Finally we women suffer because men will then start to treat us like primitive cave creatures who get pulled around by their hair.

I consider myself equal to guys, so this just doesn't apply to me.

If you don't believe me, read Tom Wolfe's latest "I am Charlotte Simmons". This is really a parody of our times. And a warning.

Admit it: this is you, isn't it, Tom?

Anyway, give men a chance to sober up and be decent. Once that happens, you will not regret 20 years down the road that it was really your own behaviour that put you in the corner.

This is going to sound radical, but men have pretty much always been decent and respectful and nice to me. I know, I know, it has to be false, right? I'm a chick, so therefore surely I must feel like a victim, sitting around on a Saturday night waiting for the phone to ring, asking for advice on when to put out, buying dating manuals to learn how to pretend to have self-esteem, obsessing over every detail of a date, saying things like "Why do men say they're going to call but don't?", despising my exes, saying that there are no good men in New York, etc. That just has never been the case for a lot of us. Where is the chick lit for chicks like us?

I do enjoy your posts, it certainly beats those others (_____________, et. al.). I wonder though why the swearing, the drinking, the getting stoned and the porn? Suffice maybe that I’ve noticed it.

I'll cop to everything else, but I don't watch porn, I just make jokes about it. In fact, I make jokes about a lot of things. This website is certainly not meant to be a serious representation of everything I do or think about.

In good faith, as a warning I felt my duty to convey,
XXX

(Excerpt of conversation with best friend right before posting this:
lindsayism: Yeah, but I sort of want to use this to say something about women. (go ahead, groan)
XXXXXX: No, I knew when I read it that you were going to put your post-feminist face on.)